I find it depressing to think about Israel as well because they just do whatever the F they want and all the Christ cucks in Congress and Hebrews in our media either turn a blind eye to slaughter or openly support it. And if you have a contrary word you are a repellent antisemite. Puts normal people in a tough spot.
Everyone always complains that they are not antisemitic, they just don't like the Israeli government and specific policies. That's fine, and I guess I would more readily believe it if all those people were just as exorcised when the US and (especially) Arabs do similar and worse.
In 1940 the US supplied British with the means to fight, and in summer 1941 even Soviet Russia, while still continuing diplomatic relations with the 3rd Reich. That's totally normal.
There we differ. It's obvious that once Germany overran whole Western Europe except Britain that it needed to be taken down. Same as in WW1, where it almost overran France and has started to encourage Mexico to reconquer the lost lands of the North.
Yes. We differ on the subject. Germany didn’t come close to overrunning France in the First World War. It held a portion of the northeast of the country. Regardless, it was no more our business than was the Franco-Prussian war, in which some of the German states utterly defeated France.
Golf Channel had golf architect, Gil Hansen, go over the work on all 18 holes (worth watching if you can find it). They moved one tee back 15-20 yards because the had a US Amateur or something there and a bunch of players started to hit to a different fairway for a better angle to the green. I thought a few trees between those holes would make much more sense.
They trucked in a big tree in the middle of a US Open or PGA once (Inverness?) to prevent Lon Hinkle from driving into a different fairway in later rounds.
Yes I think you mentioned here or on Twitter Rory's big hook around the tree at Augusta. Without the tree it is a great shot, with the tree a shot remembered for decades
In my youth I actually worked on a golf course and a particular green died because of too many trees on the east side and lack of air flow. As an arborist told me, trees and grass are deadly enemies.
In another thread I mentioned the Narin and Portnoo links course on the southwest Donegal coast. Gil Hanse is the architect they brought in to renovate it. They wouldn’t have much luck growing trees there, I can tell you.
Yes Americans are pretty silly. The golfing trendsetters jet off to the treeless Scottish coast, the AUTHENTIC birthplace of golf, so therefore trees bad.
I'm reminded of Tyler Cowen swooning over Europe and its walkable, livable urban cores while ignoring the piles of regulation and feudal titles that keep it that way. Then he returns to the US and declares zoning #literallyHitler.
I'm not Israeli or Iranian so I don't care what they do to each other. If Israel or Iran disappear tomorrow, what are the consequences to American society and human thriving? I'll check in and you can let me know right here. I also could not care less which group of Slavic oligarchs rules the eastern crescent of Ukraine.
For some reason, Steve's last sentence triggered one of those nagging tunes you can't get out of your head: John McCain's Beach Boy tribute: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
At one time I was a member of a club with a Donald Ross course, which over time had allowed trees to spring up where he hadn’t intended, as they could interfere with normal play. One in particular was maybe 20 yards from the front of the tee box and perhaps just 15 feet to the left edge, so the spread of its branches meant that any shot had to have a pretty low launch angle and couldn’t be even a hair off center to left. Naturally I hit a piece of a branch 80 percent of the time even though my typical tee shot didn’t look like that on any other hole. It drove me crazy.
Anyway, the club decided to cut down a bunch of trees to bring the course back into alignment with the original design. Except that one.
I was thinking about your holiday plans-perhaps you should cross-reference them with the range of the various missiles that are seemingly going to be flying about. Scandinavia, Scotland and the west coast of Ireland should probably be bumped up the list. Where better to be than a links course if the sky turns all to fire
Not too many years ago, I would have automatically sided with a democratic state against an authoritarian one, but it's too obvious now that many democratic ones aren't actually responsive to their people--or their people are nuts. Democracy needs to work on its "brand."
The East had a lot fewer trees c.1900 than in our lifetime. I imagine many early Southern courses were built for cool season play by rich Yankees--the summer glare would have been as bad as the humidity. Trees would have been welcomed.
Was Oakmont play ever affected by Pittsburgh smog when it was still industrial? Does their noise abatement for the turnpike affect play?
Not too bad. Combine the loss of the steel mills to the 70s Clean Air Acts and you have a cleaner Pittsburgh. Perhaps Pittsburgh should rename the Steelers the Squealers.
The story goes that the soot and smog were so bad during midcentury America that one could wear a white dress shirt in the morning and it would be nearly solid gray by late afternoon, especially if he had spent sufficient time outdoors in the city.
The town of McKeesport, PA, about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh was home to a famous 1947 debate between Nixon and JFK on the merits of the Taft-Hartley labor bill.
From the Nixon Foundation:
They had been asked to debate before a Junto Forum (this kind of discussion-based group dated back to the days of Benjamin Franklin) and to argue the merits, or lack thereof, of a piece of legislation informally known as the Taft-Hartley bill (officially, it was “The Labor-Management Relations Act”).
This legislation had already passed the House and was at that time before the Senate. It was designed to rein in what was referred to at the time as Big Labor, and was the most successful of more than 200 similar bills proposed in the immediate aftermath of the war, as the country faced significant labor unrest. It would eventually clear the Senate and be vetoed by President Truman, who referred to it as a “slave labor” bill. His veto was then overridden and he actually found himself using the act a dozen or so times during his presidency.
JFK was opposed to the bill, yet favored certain aspects of it, while Nixon supported the bill.
No record whether or not the two men's shirts came out dirty that day as they both spent their time in the Penn Mckee Hotel for the debate.
Thanks for the history. My knowledge of the immediate post-WW Two America is not very strong. It makes sense that there would be labor unrest due to 12 million or so soldiers and airmen and sailors re-entering the work force thus driving down wages.
The phasing out of leaded gasoline helped diminish the smog. Even in Washington DC with its small industrial base, smog was heavy, especially in the Summer.
Building a "links" course @500 miles from the sea is silly. Instead of sweeping coastal vistas and sounds of seagulls you get the Pennsylvania Turnpike and sounds of eighteen wheelers. It's raw and ugly in a man-made, not natural way.
Put some trees back.
Now that that's settled, on to the quandary of Israel and their neighbors:
My comment would be: Steve, you know SO much more about golf courses. Besides, a week, a month or a year later, people do know so much better. In almost every situation experts are identified after the fact.
For example back in the Fall of 2022, most "experts" said that Russia is doomed because of the battlefield reversals around Kharkov and Kherson. So Sweden and Finland (Scandinavia!) jumped in and joined NATO. Today, it doesn't look like that "expert" assessment of Fall 2022 anymore.
Agree completely. First, Russians had an underpowered effort and all sorts of problems. Have you seen that 1966 comedy "The Russians are coming!" by Norman Jewison? I think he got more or less right at how they usually perform at first try.
Anyway, Adolf would have hesitated with Barbarossa if Russian performance in the 1939/40 Finnish war wasn't so poor. The point is - their performance improved spectacularly thereafter. By Spring/Summer 1943 Adolf already hesitated at opening the Battle of the Kursk Salient.
Who knew, Carnegie played golf. Do the Ayatollah and Netanyahu play golf as well? Maybe that’s the problem, they disagree on the appropriate number of trees on a golf course. We should Steve over to Middle East to mediate with his common sense solutions.
I've seen 4 majors on 3 courses. Chambers Bay, Whistling Straits, and Medinah.
In my opinion, getting rid of trees is a PGA thing involving packing in spectators. Didn't it start with the Pete Dye stadium things? But, if you care about the sporting event, the best place to watch is TV. Even if at the course, getting hammered in a corporate tent near a screen. Live is a good chance to walk around and luck into seeing interesting things. Trees are good for that. I liked Medinah.
Does anyone really care that much who wins? I can barely get excited about US vs Europe. You wanna see the stars do star like stuff, but to get more excited, maybe you need the new betting apps. Professional golf is an amateur sport played for money, like all proper golf.
I personally find the Current Crisis in the Middle East (as Chomsky would put it) more interesting than golf, but I'm glad that Steve doesn't.
I basically support Israel and have no sympathy for the Axis of Resistance, including Iran. Legally, Iran does not recognize Israel's existence as a sovereign state, and has pledged to destroy it. Practically, Iran has materially supported Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in their attacks on Israel. Consequently, Iran has, as a legal and practical matter, defined Israel as an enemy subject to military attack at their discretion.
How then can they complain about Israeli retaliation? If Iran wants peace with Israel, maybe it should try...signing a peace treaty recognizing Israel's existence and normalizing diplomatic relations? You know, the way Egypt and Jordan have successfully done?
Likewise for the Palestinians. The war is Gaza is terrible, so...Hamas should unconditionally surrender already? And the Palestinians should try supporting a new political party that proposes to sign a peace treaty normalizing relations and recognizing Israel's existence (at least within the pre-1967 borders)? As opposed to a political party that promises to wage endless war to destroy Israel.
Iran has mountains that would be perfect for golf courses. Israel is mostly flat, perfect for baseball and football. The problem of Iran having golf courses is the lack of a salubrious, joyous and bubbly 19th Hole. What would the 19th Hole be without a cold beer, perhaps a Martini or Whiskey, and a Reuben with French Fries?
Iran's average age is 32. They should be in the middle of a society-flipping cultural revolution, culminating in a 3 day rave at Yusef's farm. Lady Gaga plays the Iranian national anthem.
Syria's average age is, wait for it, twenty-freaking-three, and look what just happened in Syria. The youthful Sunni majority just overthrew those stodgy old Alawites and their stifling Western attire, stashes of wine, their boring old dabkes and elaborate dinner parties.
What is it about fundamentalist Islam? Is it fun and I just don't know it? Maybe I should be Muslim?
The elderly Syrians and Lebanese I know who remember red wine and miniskirts during the 70s, like everywhere else, tell me the entire region flipped in the mid 1980s. They're as baffled by it as I am. Those youthful Muslim zealots are now old men but the region's young people still toe the line.
Fervent minorities often force their way into power. Look at the Bolsheviks. Lenin and the boys were never close to a majority but they willed their way into power and bent Russia to their will.
"Oakmont County Club, a robber baron era golf course outside Pittsburgh that is currently hosting its record-setting tenth U.S. Open golf championship."
Oakmont is nestled in the confines of Fox Chapel, which is THE premier top 1% ultra exclusive enclave of Western PA, no other place comes close to defining "Old Money, established top 1%" Put another way, Fox Chapel could easily be placed in Philadelphia's Main Line enclaves of Old Money. Fox Chapel would easily host an event with Mitt Romney or say, one of the Vanderbilts/Rockefeller/Ford/etc type. That is the prestige that Fox Chapel brings to having a PGA tournament hosted by its high end exclusive country club Oakmont.
"What I want to think about instead is finishing my post on the rise and fall of trees on the U.S. Open golf course, Oakmont."
And with this recent post of yours, what I really hope will become a possibility is that you consider culling together (and of course expanding) your golf related articles into a book. With all that you've written over the years on golf, Steve, the book literally writes itself. Every new aspect, nuance, nook and cranny is explored in your articles. Clearly for you golf isn't a minor thing to occasionally think about; it's more than a hobby, it's...like a way of life for you. It's one of your passions and it's genuine.
So put your passion into print and release a book about golf, with appropriate b/w color photos to go with it, naturally.
I'm near a golf course that is very steep, up in the Georgia mountains. You can see the lake and also nearly to the start of the Appalachian Trail. The cows watch the golfers. We're the birthplace of Stock car racing. Wild Bill Elliott. One county building has a racecar museum and hands out free samples of moonshine. But it's staggering how quickly things are changing demographically. The Country Music park is now soccer fields. No more Loretta Lynn. No more Charlie Pride. Polo and cricket clubs are proliferating. The largest minority group now, growing by well over 3% a year, is wealthy South Asians from India. They make up 16% of the population of the county I'm in (I can walk to two others: we once grew counties like kudzu). Hindu temples, old-time Baptist revival camps where singing still drifts through misty hills, moonshine, Stock cars. Cows. Lots and lots of cows. It's dizzying.
Of all the criticisms you hear of South Asians, you never hear that they're uninterested in golf (for which you don't need water-polo level athleticism). I've played with one Indian guy, in San Jose, and he didn't say a word to me the entire round.
I couldn't speak to Indian preferences about golf. I did attend an Indian dance recital once (daughter of a friend). The young woman danced, alone on stage, for four or five hours. I couldn't appreciate the significance of the dances, but it must have taken years of training. Oddly, it reminded me more of opera than ballet.
Not interested in golf.
Me neither but I love trees.
I find it depressing to think about Israel as well because they just do whatever the F they want and all the Christ cucks in Congress and Hebrews in our media either turn a blind eye to slaughter or openly support it. And if you have a contrary word you are a repellent antisemite. Puts normal people in a tough spot.
Everyone always complains that they are not antisemitic, they just don't like the Israeli government and specific policies. That's fine, and I guess I would more readily believe it if all those people were just as exorcised when the US and (especially) Arabs do similar and worse.
Thank you for allowing me to disagree w Israel. I also don’t like it when Arabs or Americans slaughter 30k Palestinians.
What about Kurds? Or Kuwaitis? Or Darfurians? Or Yezidis? These are OK?
I’m with you 100%. The problem is that we’re supplying both the Israelis and the Ukrainians with the means to fight.
In 1940 the US supplied British with the means to fight, and in summer 1941 even Soviet Russia, while still continuing diplomatic relations with the 3rd Reich. That's totally normal.
I don’t think we should have supplied either of those belligerents either. Nor those involved in the First World War.
There we differ. It's obvious that once Germany overran whole Western Europe except Britain that it needed to be taken down. Same as in WW1, where it almost overran France and has started to encourage Mexico to reconquer the lost lands of the North.
Yes. We differ on the subject. Germany didn’t come close to overrunning France in the First World War. It held a portion of the northeast of the country. Regardless, it was no more our business than was the Franco-Prussian war, in which some of the German states utterly defeated France.
Golf Channel had golf architect, Gil Hansen, go over the work on all 18 holes (worth watching if you can find it). They moved one tee back 15-20 yards because the had a US Amateur or something there and a bunch of players started to hit to a different fairway for a better angle to the green. I thought a few trees between those holes would make much more sense.
They trucked in a big tree in the middle of a US Open or PGA once (Inverness?) to prevent Lon Hinkle from driving into a different fairway in later rounds.
Trees can be useful on a golf course.
Yes I think you mentioned here or on Twitter Rory's big hook around the tree at Augusta. Without the tree it is a great shot, with the tree a shot remembered for decades
In my youth I actually worked on a golf course and a particular green died because of too many trees on the east side and lack of air flow. As an arborist told me, trees and grass are deadly enemies.
Wasn't it a Western Open? Greg Norman was cutting the dogleg off of a par four.
Maybe it's happened more than once...
In another thread I mentioned the Narin and Portnoo links course on the southwest Donegal coast. Gil Hanse is the architect they brought in to renovate it. They wouldn’t have much luck growing trees there, I can tell you.
Yes Americans are pretty silly. The golfing trendsetters jet off to the treeless Scottish coast, the AUTHENTIC birthplace of golf, so therefore trees bad.
I'm reminded of Tyler Cowen swooning over Europe and its walkable, livable urban cores while ignoring the piles of regulation and feudal titles that keep it that way. Then he returns to the US and declares zoning #literallyHitler.
I'm not Israeli or Iranian so I don't care what they do to each other. If Israel or Iran disappear tomorrow, what are the consequences to American society and human thriving? I'll check in and you can let me know right here. I also could not care less which group of Slavic oligarchs rules the eastern crescent of Ukraine.
Sounds like an authentic American Firster to me.
For some reason, Steve's last sentence triggered one of those nagging tunes you can't get out of your head: John McCain's Beach Boy tribute: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
Your mention of tunes reminded me of one Abdul Abulbul Amir
"Young man, quoth Abdul, has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir"
An oldie but a goodie - Vince Vance 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8hEtI9AI0U&list=PLkiNvv9usLmX6pw9EJQPQ_rjSa6Qtjw4w&index=7
Mark Levin also loves to sing childish sons about successful bombing missions. I don't know who is a worse singer, Levin or McCain.
At one time I was a member of a club with a Donald Ross course, which over time had allowed trees to spring up where he hadn’t intended, as they could interfere with normal play. One in particular was maybe 20 yards from the front of the tee box and perhaps just 15 feet to the left edge, so the spread of its branches meant that any shot had to have a pretty low launch angle and couldn’t be even a hair off center to left. Naturally I hit a piece of a branch 80 percent of the time even though my typical tee shot didn’t look like that on any other hole. It drove me crazy.
Anyway, the club decided to cut down a bunch of trees to bring the course back into alignment with the original design. Except that one.
I was thinking about your holiday plans-perhaps you should cross-reference them with the range of the various missiles that are seemingly going to be flying about. Scandinavia, Scotland and the west coast of Ireland should probably be bumped up the list. Where better to be than a links course if the sky turns all to fire
Scandinavia and Scotland are in an undeclared war with Russia.
Poland, Slovakia and Hungary are relatively safe on that account.
Not too many years ago, I would have automatically sided with a democratic state against an authoritarian one, but it's too obvious now that many democratic ones aren't actually responsive to their people--or their people are nuts. Democracy needs to work on its "brand."
The East had a lot fewer trees c.1900 than in our lifetime. I imagine many early Southern courses were built for cool season play by rich Yankees--the summer glare would have been as bad as the humidity. Trees would have been welcomed.
Was Oakmont play ever affected by Pittsburgh smog when it was still industrial? Does their noise abatement for the turnpike affect play?
Pittsburgh smog was incredibly bad during WWII. I don't know about since then.
Not too bad. Combine the loss of the steel mills to the 70s Clean Air Acts and you have a cleaner Pittsburgh. Perhaps Pittsburgh should rename the Steelers the Squealers.
The story goes that the soot and smog were so bad during midcentury America that one could wear a white dress shirt in the morning and it would be nearly solid gray by late afternoon, especially if he had spent sufficient time outdoors in the city.
The town of McKeesport, PA, about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh was home to a famous 1947 debate between Nixon and JFK on the merits of the Taft-Hartley labor bill.
From the Nixon Foundation:
They had been asked to debate before a Junto Forum (this kind of discussion-based group dated back to the days of Benjamin Franklin) and to argue the merits, or lack thereof, of a piece of legislation informally known as the Taft-Hartley bill (officially, it was “The Labor-Management Relations Act”).
This legislation had already passed the House and was at that time before the Senate. It was designed to rein in what was referred to at the time as Big Labor, and was the most successful of more than 200 similar bills proposed in the immediate aftermath of the war, as the country faced significant labor unrest. It would eventually clear the Senate and be vetoed by President Truman, who referred to it as a “slave labor” bill. His veto was then overridden and he actually found himself using the act a dozen or so times during his presidency.
JFK was opposed to the bill, yet favored certain aspects of it, while Nixon supported the bill.
No record whether or not the two men's shirts came out dirty that day as they both spent their time in the Penn Mckee Hotel for the debate.
Thanks for the history. My knowledge of the immediate post-WW Two America is not very strong. It makes sense that there would be labor unrest due to 12 million or so soldiers and airmen and sailors re-entering the work force thus driving down wages.
The phasing out of leaded gasoline helped diminish the smog. Even in Washington DC with its small industrial base, smog was heavy, especially in the Summer.
Building a "links" course @500 miles from the sea is silly. Instead of sweeping coastal vistas and sounds of seagulls you get the Pennsylvania Turnpike and sounds of eighteen wheelers. It's raw and ugly in a man-made, not natural way.
Put some trees back.
Now that that's settled, on to the quandary of Israel and their neighbors:
Not all problems have a solution.
My comment would be: Steve, you know SO much more about golf courses. Besides, a week, a month or a year later, people do know so much better. In almost every situation experts are identified after the fact.
For example back in the Fall of 2022, most "experts" said that Russia is doomed because of the battlefield reversals around Kharkov and Kherson. So Sweden and Finland (Scandinavia!) jumped in and joined NATO. Today, it doesn't look like that "expert" assessment of Fall 2022 anymore.
The consensus in early 2022 was Ukraine would collapse immediately and Zelensky needed asylum somewhere. Also wrong.
Agree completely. First, Russians had an underpowered effort and all sorts of problems. Have you seen that 1966 comedy "The Russians are coming!" by Norman Jewison? I think he got more or less right at how they usually perform at first try.
Anyway, Adolf would have hesitated with Barbarossa if Russian performance in the 1939/40 Finnish war wasn't so poor. The point is - their performance improved spectacularly thereafter. By Spring/Summer 1943 Adolf already hesitated at opening the Battle of the Kursk Salient.
Maybe should have paid more attention to Khalkin Gol
Definitely. But hey, he imagined he's Napoleon.
Who knew, Carnegie played golf. Do the Ayatollah and Netanyahu play golf as well? Maybe that’s the problem, they disagree on the appropriate number of trees on a golf course. We should Steve over to Middle East to mediate with his common sense solutions.
SCTV’s Bob Hope Desert Classic:
https://youtu.be/QBw-710W-x4?si=ZHsGsuXyAfVOvQmp
I've seen 4 majors on 3 courses. Chambers Bay, Whistling Straits, and Medinah.
In my opinion, getting rid of trees is a PGA thing involving packing in spectators. Didn't it start with the Pete Dye stadium things? But, if you care about the sporting event, the best place to watch is TV. Even if at the course, getting hammered in a corporate tent near a screen. Live is a good chance to walk around and luck into seeing interesting things. Trees are good for that. I liked Medinah.
Does anyone really care that much who wins? I can barely get excited about US vs Europe. You wanna see the stars do star like stuff, but to get more excited, maybe you need the new betting apps. Professional golf is an amateur sport played for money, like all proper golf.
I personally find the Current Crisis in the Middle East (as Chomsky would put it) more interesting than golf, but I'm glad that Steve doesn't.
I basically support Israel and have no sympathy for the Axis of Resistance, including Iran. Legally, Iran does not recognize Israel's existence as a sovereign state, and has pledged to destroy it. Practically, Iran has materially supported Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in their attacks on Israel. Consequently, Iran has, as a legal and practical matter, defined Israel as an enemy subject to military attack at their discretion.
How then can they complain about Israeli retaliation? If Iran wants peace with Israel, maybe it should try...signing a peace treaty recognizing Israel's existence and normalizing diplomatic relations? You know, the way Egypt and Jordan have successfully done?
Likewise for the Palestinians. The war is Gaza is terrible, so...Hamas should unconditionally surrender already? And the Palestinians should try supporting a new political party that proposes to sign a peace treaty normalizing relations and recognizing Israel's existence (at least within the pre-1967 borders)? As opposed to a political party that promises to wage endless war to destroy Israel.
Iran has mountains that would be perfect for golf courses. Israel is mostly flat, perfect for baseball and football. The problem of Iran having golf courses is the lack of a salubrious, joyous and bubbly 19th Hole. What would the 19th Hole be without a cold beer, perhaps a Martini or Whiskey, and a Reuben with French Fries?
Iran's average age is 32. They should be in the middle of a society-flipping cultural revolution, culminating in a 3 day rave at Yusef's farm. Lady Gaga plays the Iranian national anthem.
Syria's average age is, wait for it, twenty-freaking-three, and look what just happened in Syria. The youthful Sunni majority just overthrew those stodgy old Alawites and their stifling Western attire, stashes of wine, their boring old dabkes and elaborate dinner parties.
What is it about fundamentalist Islam? Is it fun and I just don't know it? Maybe I should be Muslim?
The elderly Syrians and Lebanese I know who remember red wine and miniskirts during the 70s, like everywhere else, tell me the entire region flipped in the mid 1980s. They're as baffled by it as I am. Those youthful Muslim zealots are now old men but the region's young people still toe the line.
Fervent minorities often force their way into power. Look at the Bolsheviks. Lenin and the boys were never close to a majority but they willed their way into power and bent Russia to their will.
"Oakmont County Club, a robber baron era golf course outside Pittsburgh that is currently hosting its record-setting tenth U.S. Open golf championship."
Oakmont is nestled in the confines of Fox Chapel, which is THE premier top 1% ultra exclusive enclave of Western PA, no other place comes close to defining "Old Money, established top 1%" Put another way, Fox Chapel could easily be placed in Philadelphia's Main Line enclaves of Old Money. Fox Chapel would easily host an event with Mitt Romney or say, one of the Vanderbilts/Rockefeller/Ford/etc type. That is the prestige that Fox Chapel brings to having a PGA tournament hosted by its high end exclusive country club Oakmont.
"What I want to think about instead is finishing my post on the rise and fall of trees on the U.S. Open golf course, Oakmont."
And with this recent post of yours, what I really hope will become a possibility is that you consider culling together (and of course expanding) your golf related articles into a book. With all that you've written over the years on golf, Steve, the book literally writes itself. Every new aspect, nuance, nook and cranny is explored in your articles. Clearly for you golf isn't a minor thing to occasionally think about; it's more than a hobby, it's...like a way of life for you. It's one of your passions and it's genuine.
So put your passion into print and release a book about golf, with appropriate b/w color photos to go with it, naturally.
I'm near a golf course that is very steep, up in the Georgia mountains. You can see the lake and also nearly to the start of the Appalachian Trail. The cows watch the golfers. We're the birthplace of Stock car racing. Wild Bill Elliott. One county building has a racecar museum and hands out free samples of moonshine. But it's staggering how quickly things are changing demographically. The Country Music park is now soccer fields. No more Loretta Lynn. No more Charlie Pride. Polo and cricket clubs are proliferating. The largest minority group now, growing by well over 3% a year, is wealthy South Asians from India. They make up 16% of the population of the county I'm in (I can walk to two others: we once grew counties like kudzu). Hindu temples, old-time Baptist revival camps where singing still drifts through misty hills, moonshine, Stock cars. Cows. Lots and lots of cows. It's dizzying.
Plus, I don't trust cows.
Of all the criticisms you hear of South Asians, you never hear that they're uninterested in golf (for which you don't need water-polo level athleticism). I've played with one Indian guy, in San Jose, and he didn't say a word to me the entire round.
I couldn't speak to Indian preferences about golf. I did attend an Indian dance recital once (daughter of a friend). The young woman danced, alone on stage, for four or five hours. I couldn't appreciate the significance of the dances, but it must have taken years of training. Oddly, it reminded me more of opera than ballet.